Posted on 01/28/2005 4:28:41 PM PST by metacognative
I've never had a problem with any part of science -- if you add n+1 enough times you get n+1. Whatta concept! But it's so hard to explain replicating clays to a three year old. A good place to start for many cultures is to teach children verses from Sacred text. Maybe something about the red mud of the Shatt el-Arab. I feel I'm in a good place knowing my place in the cosmos but I worry about the Newdows making such a stink over 4 small words in the pledge of allegiance. I really think he's doing more harm than good, especially to the three year olds he claims to be defending... Can't we just let it go?
It is somewhat more abstract than the reality that we live our lives in. After all, I do recall the reality of being at a freep in Philly and standing next to you when you were yelling at the Secret Service on the roofs at LaSalle. We all scooted a bit to the left or right when you were doing that.
But I look at the geological column as a reality in its own right. You're from Pennsylvania - you have seen the folding as you drive through the road cuts. Those formations were eroded from other formations, and then thrust up and eroded into the ridges that we see today.
The Biblical notion of a flood simply doesn't explain that, IMO.
The Bible is just a *book*. What one needs to understand is that a "theory" within the scientific community undergoes rigorous testing. Theories are so very easy to disprove, one only needs verifiable and testable procedures showing that the theory is false. And then, poof, it's gone. Believe it or not, scientists don't care to waste their time working with theories that will yield useless results. If Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection were frail it would have been disproven a long time ago, like Lamarckian's theory of evolution. But it simply has not been disproven, and no, the 2nd Law of Thermo hasn't disproven it. :)
If my car is making a knocking sound, I could have a theory as to what that sound is. The car mechanic would formulate his own theories and subject the car to testing, if reality does not comport with a certain theory (of which there may be many) then the theory is discarded. This is where the similarity with a scientific theory ends though.
A scientific theory serves as a model for discovering additional properties about our environment. A theory should help guide our way to increased understanding of the world around us - and this has been the case with natural selection. It has not only answered past questions but has served as a pointed to further knowledge - just one trite example is the field of genetic algorithms which are used on Wall Street to model the movements of markets, among other things.
There's also the Germ Theory of Disease, the Atomic Theory of Matter. These, too, are "just theories" - but we, as a people, have learned so much from their application. Lives are made better because we use these theories to discover and master those things around us which we used to be victim to. Darwin's theory of natural selection should be no threat to Christianity - it has served as the foundation for practically all of modern biology and has aided mankind in gaining an understanding of his environment.
Not really. Rights accrue to individuals regardless of contracts. If they are simply "duties imposed on another actor", then the actor with the bigger gun does the imposing and that is quite moral according to your statement.
- when those duties are observed then rights are *conferred*.
This is silly. To confer means to give something from a position of authority. An authority that gives can taketh away.
Rights are not created without someone else first observing their duty.
You have the timeline mixed up. Rights come first from God. Duty enters the equation because it is your duty not to violate anothers rights. Doing your duty doesn't get you extra rights, it just gets you in the moral line.
God has no duty to me and cannot confer rights to me - only my fellow human being can do that.
This one is right out of the Communist Manifesto. You can not know what God has or doesn't have for starters. Secondly, if your fellow human can confer rights he can take them away, all quite morally according to your philosophy.
My rights to live, liberty, and happiness are not because God is observing his duty, but because my fellow man is. When my fellow man stops observing that duty then I most certainly lose the rights conferred from that duty.
Your rights to life, liberty and property are dependent on nobody conferring them on you. They may be taken away by immoral acts but that is not the same thing.
My rights are protected by the state through their use of police power.
Governments are instituted to protect rights alright but my rights and those of my family are primarily protected by me.
God does not ensure that my rights are upheld, not in this lifetime - and that's the one I'm personally interested in.
God is not a puppet master, He gave you free will and the ability ensure your own rights are upheld. Be grateful for those wonderful gifts.
I have a wife in this life - and I want her rights and my rights to be respected in this life. And this is accomplished by the state through the creation of laws and penalties.
You put way too much faith in the state amigo. Way too much.
If/when someone fails to observe their duty and infringes upon my rights then the state intervenes and imposes a penalty on the transgressor (and hopefully the threat of this penalty will prevent one from transgressing in the first place). But without a state to protect my rights, it does me no good for those rights to be called "inalienable" - because I can most certainly be alienated from those rights as soon as the contract with my fellow human beings breaks down. God doesn't enter into this equation, there is no contract bebcause there are not two parties involved who can represent themselves plainly.
You don't know the meaning of inalienable. Your rights can be violated but you can't transfer them through American Express. They are yours. The right to Abulafias life is his and his alone.
I think you need to go back to the drawing board.
The hoax is circling the drain. Nothing scientific rests on the hoax, which is a good thing b/c it's laughable nonsense, built on jibberjabber jargn: Blahblahblah "DNA" blahblahblah...
Sounds familiar. Oh yeah, Galileo. Seems as though human nature is human nature regardless of who is in control.
De Broglie's doctoral thesis Recherches sur la théorie des quanta (Researches on the quantum theory) of 1924...
Hint: Don't attack the other side as being jibberjabber with your own form of jibberjabber.
RE: "NOTE: This is a 'truth of science' debate. Leave God out of it, and keep minds open!"
Ay, but that's the rub isn't it? Every time an Evolution vs. Creationism thread is posted, it inevitably devolves into a gruesome shouting match with both sides trying to prove the existence of something which has (in either opinion) been around so long that there is no indisputable historical record of it's existence. Belief in either God or Science (through the theory of evolution) as the foundation of life on Earth and the reason for being of the universe is therefore founded entirely upon our faith-- faith backed up only by souces of information that are in constant dispute by the other faction (the writings of the Bible; the various scientific tests used to "prove" that something is older than any human being).
Therfore, trying to "prove" the origins of life on Earth on an Internet thread (or indeed at all) is a practice that is truly akin to beating one's head against a brick wall. Heck, the only reason I even posted on this masochistic thread is to point out how silly it is (which actually makes me sillier than any of you, I guess).
BTW: Just for the record, I am a Christian, and a believer in God as the creator of the Heavens and the Earth (all of existence) and the originator and constant architect of life on Earth. I believe in Heaven and Hell. Others on this thread choose to place their faith in science, seemingly knowing (believing) that science can provide the answers to the great questions in life: the origins of life on earth, where mankind came from, and where (if anywhere) man and animals go after they die. It doesn't bother me to have a difference of opinion here, as long as it is respected between both parties that there is no such thing as undisputed physical proof of life's origins, and that the defenitive knowledge of how old the Earth really is and how it began, etc. are beyond the reaches of our meager understandings except as matter of our faiths.
WONDERFUL. THANKS.
I agree with that. But what encourages your fellow human beings to confer rights that are part and parcel of living your life with basic human dignity, even when it is against their self interest? THAT is the question. It comes from overarching moral beliefs. Where do those come from? They come from a priori beliefs. A priori beliefs that are commonly viewed as essential to a civil society, and the will to adhere to them, tend for most to have come from, and the will to adhere to them by, those who are humble before what they consider their "God."
I am a self described near atheist, not so common in America, but common in Europe. I have this feeling that we of my ilk are just freeloading in large part off the sensibilities of those with faith. One can get there otherwise, but it is a far more difficult path.
In short, the still resilient religious faith abroad in the fruited plain is a primary source of America's resiliency and strength. I am glad it still exists. It's waning would be a risky scheme over time. That is my secular practical take of the matter.
And there you have it.
PS: John, I just work through a different intellectual labyrinth to get to the "truth." :)
Like to have seen a lizard deciding to grow feathers from scales.. Not many things as detailed and intricate as a feather.. Must've been a big job.. designing and creating feathers.. Even over zillions of years feathers might of not come to fruitition.. Must've happened over billions of trys, producing ONE feather.. Smart dudes them lizards..
That depends on your definition of parallel line. Both denials are equally valid.
Be specific.
You seem to have mistaken me for one who has taken up a position in favor of intelligent design. Actually, all I have done is proposed that the author of the article under discussion be refuted on the basis of his article, rather than the weight of his credentials. If he's really the fool he's made out to be, the peer review process should deal with him quite handily; that's what it's for, after all.
I have also made the observation that it's difficult to design an experiment to investigate the origin of speciation...a contention that I stand by, despite your blithe dismissal. All I meant by it is to point out that the field, being as theoretical as it is, leaves room for a great many academic pi$$ing contests.
I see no need to add another one to the roster, academic or not, so I'll just bow out now, thanks.
ROFL!
Yeah. Sure. Whatever. You keep thinking that if you want to.
Perhaps you have never heard of non-Euclidean geometry ...
Only if you believe the men that got together and voted on what to include and exclude from the Bible ...
If the religious fanatics want to put God into science, then, they should return the favor and put God to the scientific test. Nevermind. They have tried and they always failed.
It's been explained many times over. Just go visit one of the evolution sites and spend a little less time on the creationists' sites.
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